Aram Ter-Sarkisov

Aram Ter-Sarkisov, Eduardo Alonso

In this paper we introduce Local Logo Generative Adversarial Network (LL-GAN) that uses regional features extracted from Faster R-CNN for logo generation. We demonstrate the strength of this approach by training the framework on a small style-rich dataset of real heavy metal logos to generate new ones. LL-GAN achieves Inception Score of 5.29 and Frechet Inception Distance of 223.94, improving on state-of-the-art models StyleGAN2 and Self-Attention GAN.

Aram Ter-Sarkisov

We introduce a method for transferring style from the logos of heavy metal bands onto corporate logos using a VGG16 network. We establish the contribution of different layers and loss coefficients to the learning of style, minimization of artefacts and maintenance of readability of corporate logos. We find layers and loss coefficients that produce a good tradeoff between heavy metal style and corporate logo readability. This is the first step both towards sparse font style transfer and corporate logo decoration using generative networks. Heavy metal and corporate logos are very different artistically, in the way they emphasize emotions and readability, therefore training a model to fuse the two is an interesting problem.

Aram Ter-Sarkisov, Robert Ross, John Kelleher et al.

We present an instance segmentation algorithm trained and applied to a CCTV recording of beef cattle during a winter finishing period. A fully convolutional network was transformed into an instance segmentation network that learns to label each instance of an animal separately. We introduce a conceptually simple framework that the network uses to output a single prediction for every animal. These results are a contribution towards behaviour analysis in winter finishing beef cattle for early detection of animal welfare-related problems.

Aram Ter-Sarkisov, Robert Ross, John Kelleher

This paper introduces a new approach to the long-term tracking of an object in a challenging environment. The object is a cow and the environment is an enclosure in a cowshed. Some of the key challenges in this domain are a cluttered background, low contrast and high similarity between moving objects which greatly reduces the efficiency of most existing approaches, including those based on background subtraction. Our approach is split into object localization, instance segmentation, learning and tracking stages. Our solution is compared to a range of semi-supervised object tracking algorithms and we show that the performance is strong and well suited to subsequent analysis. We present our solution as a first step towards broader tracking and behavior monitoring for cows in precision agriculture with the ultimate objective of early detection of lameness.

Aram Ter-Sarkisov, Stephen Marsland

There has been a variety of crossover operators proposed for Real-Coded Genetic Algorithms (RCGAs), which recombine values from the same location in pairs of strings. In this article we present a recombination operator for RC- GAs that selects the locations randomly in both parents, and compare it to mainstream crossover operators in a set of experiments on a range of standard multidimensional optimization problems and a clustering problem. We present two variants of the operator, either selecting both bits uniformly at random in the strings, or sampling the second bit from a normal distribution centered at the selected location in the first string. While the operator is biased towards exploitation of fitness space, the random selection of the second bit for swap- ping makes it slightly less exploitation-biased. Extensive statistical analysis using a non-parametric test shows the advantage of the new recombination operators on a range of test functions.

Aram Ter-Sarkisov, Holger Schwenk, Loic Barrault et al.

It is today acknowledged that neural network language models outperform backoff language models in applications like speech recognition or statistical machine translation. However, training these models on large amounts of data can take several days. We present efficient techniques to adapt a neural network language model to new data. Instead of training a completely new model or relying on mixture approaches, we propose two new methods: continued training on resampled data or insertion of adaptation layers. We present experimental results in an CAT environment where the post-edits of professional translators are used to improve an SMT system. Both methods are very fast and achieve significant improvements without overfitting the small adaptation data.

Aram Ter-Sarkisov, Stephen Marsland

In this article a tool for the analysis of population-based EAs is used to derive asymptotic upper bounds on the optimization time of the algorithm solving Royal Roads problem, a test function with plateaus of fitness. In addition to this, limiting distribution of a certain subset of the population is approximated.

Aram Ter-Sarkisov

In this article we present an Elitism Levels Traverse Mechanism that we designed to find bounds on population-based Evolutionary algorithms solving unimodal functions. We prove its efficiency theoretically and test it on OneMax function deriving bounds cμn log n - O(μ n). This analysis can be generalized to any similar algorithm using variants of tournament selection and genetic operators that flip or swap only 1 bit in each string.